Saturday, October 11, 2014

Glass Fusing at William Holland School of Lapidary Arts with Julia Larson

William Holland School of Lapidary Arts is located in North Georgia in Young Harris about two hours from Asheville, North Carolina. Classes begin after dinner on Sunday evenings. I was enrolled in Glass Fusing II with Julia Larson from Huntington Street Art Glass Design in Florida. I was one of six students in the class. Sunday night we started layering our layered pendants which were immediately put in the kiln to be fired. This was a three firing process.

On Monday we learned about the reactive potential of Bullseye Glass. The results are see in these two photographs. The canary yellow glass was glued to a piece of clear glass with turquoise frit glued on the top of the yellow creating shadows from the frit. The tomato glass had strips of silver foil and a clear glass top. Light cyan with a clear glass base and Bullseye reactive stringers are on the right. My favorite begins with a clear glass bottom topped by french vanilla adding foil strips and then sprinkle with light aqua medium frit. This one will become a pendant.

More reactions with Bullseye glass, Bullseye frit, and into the kiln they go.

This is a real fern with lots of frit in many colors. The joy of glass is you are never sure what your art glass will become until it is out of the kiln.

One layer of glass over fiber paper with bubbles in just the right places!

We pulled our own stringers from scrap pieces of glass. White glass is placed onto a base of clear glass and the stringers were added. They looked like glass sculpture before they were fused.

We used mica to make a paste which had to dry at least 24 hours. It was then punched out. We placed the punched mica onto a base layer of glass add a clear top. All my mica pieces had bubbles in them except one. We also learned how to pop the bubbles.

The finished layered pendant with a decal and it is beveled and fire polished.

Julia called this piece rock and roll. It is frit which has been manipulated and fused.

We created glass tops for a very sweet wooden box. These will make nice holiday gifts.

Using blue aventurine frit, we created a paste which we painted on a white piece of glass with a clear glass base. Dragonflies are very special to me for many reasons. The blue aventurine sparkles!

Bird's nest pendants created with tiny strips of glass and some little dichroic dots.

A side view of the bubble in the mica tree. These are just some of the pieces I created this past week at William Holland. My roommate created stunning jewelry with gold wire and gemstones. Several classes in many different arts are held each week from April until the end of October.
They serve a very delicious three meals a day with tea, coffee, ice water, and ice available 24 hours.
I'll be back next year for another class. Julia Larson will again be teaching glass fusing but doing different class projects. Thank you Julia and William Holland for an amazing creative week!

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I am a poet, storyteller, jewelry designer, artist, musician and creative soul who enjoys living in the magical mountains of Virginia.
"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper" ~ Eden Phillpotts